After serving 43 years in prison for a murder she did not commit, Sandra Hemme is finally free. Her release marks the end of a long and painful chapter in American judicial history, highlighting significant flaws in the justice system.
Sandra Hemme's ordeal began just days after she was released from a psychiatric hospital, where she had spent much of her life since the age of 12. In 1980, she was accused of murdering Patricia Jeschke, a 31-year-old librarian. Despite a lack of concrete evidence linking Hemme to the crime, she pleaded guilty in exchange for the removal of the death penalty.
The gruesome murder of Patricia Jeschke was discovered by her mother in November 1980 when Jeschke failed to show up for work. She was found in her apartment, naked and lying in a pool of blood, with pantyhose around her throat, a knife beneath her head, and her limbs bound with a telephone cord.
Suspicious of the timing, detectives called Hemme in for questioning. Released from a local psychiatric institution only days before the murder, Hemme was immediately under scrutiny. During interrogation, she appeared "mentally confused" and accused another man of the crime. This man's alibi—being enrolled in an alcohol treatment facility at the time of the murder—further cast doubt on Hemme's mental state and testimony.
Legal Battles and Release
On Monday, Sandra Hemme was released from Chillicothe Prison, greeted by her sister, daughter, and granddaughter. In an emotional reunion, Hemme addressed her granddaughter, saying, "You were just a baby when your mom sent me a picture of you... You looked just like your mamma when you were little, and you still look like her." Her granddaughter replied, "I get that a lot."
According to the Innocence Project's legal team, Hemme is the longest-serving wrongfully convicted woman in US history. On June 14, a judge declared her innocent, concluding that her lawyers had presented "clear and convincing evidence" that she did not murder Jeschke more than 40 years earlier. The judge also noted that "No evidence whatsoever outside of Ms. Hemme's unreliable statements connects her to the crime."
Despite this, Attorney General Andrew Bailey blocked Hemme's release, complicating her immediate freedom due to penalties she received for offences committed while incarcerated. These included a ten-year sentence in 1996 for attacking an officer with a razor blade and a two-year sentence for "offering to commit violence."
Bailey argued that Hemme should begin serving these sentences upon her release, suggesting she still posed a risk to herself and others. However, Judge Ryan Horsman threatened Bailey with contempt for his repeated attempts to keep Hemme behind bars and criticised Bailey's office for instructing jail staff to disregard a court order for Hemme's release.
"I would suggest you never do that," Horsman admonished. "To call someone and tell them to disregard a court order is wrong."
The Real Killer
New evidence has since emerged pointing to the real culprit. Police found gold horseshoe-shaped earrings believed to belong to Jeschke in the house of former police officer Michael Holman after his death in 2015. Jeschke's father confirmed he had given the earrings to his daughter, and courts determined this evidence "directly tied" Holman to the murder.
Hemme's lawyer, Sean O'Brien, condemned the decades-long legal struggle following her release. "It was too easy to convict an innocent person and way harder than it should have been to get her out, even to the point of court orders being ignored," he said. "It shouldn't be this hard to free an innocent person."
